OPINION & EDITORIAL
ASM credibility hurt following misleading vote
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Also by Jason Smathers:
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by Jason Smathers
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The referendums and their resulting fallout make one thing clear: the Associated Students of Madison need to decide who they are — student government or an advisory board.
ASM has many of the functions of a typical student government: the Student Service Finance Committee approves the allocation of student-segregated fees, the Student Council enacts legislation and the Student Judiciary reviews complaints and appeals.
However, none of these actions is truly binding. The Chancellor and Board of Regents ultimately decide what resolutions pass and what budget decisions stand. It is the administration that decides whether or not the student demands will be met. The recent referendum vote was no different. Apparently many people didn't know that.
After four elections and mudslinging between the Student Labor Action Coalition and proponents of the Student Union Initiative, both the Living Wage Requirement and the Student Union Initiative measures passed. However, it did not mean either referendum was binding, but that this vote reflected the direction that students wanted to take.
This surprised many students. Too many, in fact. Some of my friends — the ones who actually knew about the referendum — did not realize the referendums weren't binding. An opinion column in this newspaper talked about the Student Union Initiative as if it were the last word on the issue. Six members of the ASM even asked for an appeal on the referendum, saying it misled people into thinking the resolution was binding.
This resulted in a question heard far too often on campus: "Does ASM really do anything?"
Let me attempt to answer the question for them. ASM only "works" when the students and ASM officials are actually working together.
ASM is a fantastic organization that actually voices the needs of UW-Madison students. While many suggested disbanding the group last year, without ASM, UW administration would make decisions regarding the student body without student input. The ASM bus pass program, a 24-hour College Library and course evaluations are just a few of the services on campus that ASM has helped bring about.
Yet, those things were brought about through negotiations and campaigns, not just through the day-to-day bureaucracy outlined in the ASM Constitution. ASM is the collective voice of the 40,000 or more students on campus, but that doesn't result in government unless all of those voices are actually heard.
Those voices certainly won't be heard unless some changes are made. The election procedure is certainly one of those changes.
For general elections of ASM representatives, ASM must place a guide to the candidates that gives me more than an uninformative quote. A slogan only makes me think the candidates have no real plan or concern for change at UW. Fiscal conservatism sounds great, if you explain how you plan on achieving that. If any of the candidates are to be taken seriously, they need to explain why they're running, because if they don't know, then voters will pass over that section of the ballot altogether. In fact, they already do.
If another referendum finds its way on the ballot, ASM must outline to students exactly what effect their votes have. According to the ruling of the Student Judiciary, ASM should not unreasonably guide the content of candidates' speech. That may be correct, but that doesn't mean ASM can't clarify the true effect of a vote for the measure. ASM needed to explain the role of the voter, not just the effect of the initiative. Yet, that isn't just the fault of ASM officials, it's the fault of an uninformed, disinterested student body.
What people who criticize ASM don't seem to understand is that every student on campus is officially a member of ASM. As members, they have a right to make their voices heard to the administration officials. Yet, the election netted around 2,500 votes out of the more than 40,000 possible votes on campus. That's a pretty paltry turnout for a measure that financially affects every single student on campus.
Where is that resounding voice? When will the murmuring complaints of the student body rise to a yelling proclamation of demand for change? Not until more of the student body becomes involved in the affairs on campus. However, that won't happen until those elected to office in ASM make the point that the referendums failed to: Advisory measures are more than opinions when backed by 40,000 people. They are as close to binding as we will ever get.
Jason Smathers (jsmathers@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in history and journalism.
Anonymous (November 21, 2006 @ 11:42am):
Good piece on the whole. I wonder though, what different would it have made to voters if if the binding vs. non-binding issue were clearer?
Anonymous (November 25, 2006 @ 5:34am):
The author is Jason Smathers. Is that the same Jason Smathers who was arrested and convicted for stealing 92 million screen names from AOL (his employer) and selling them to a spammer? I hope not.
